Solutions that don’t break the bank, reinvent the wheel or marginalize our teachers are within our grasp. We could have rigorous classes, safe and disciplined schools and treat teachers like valued colleagues rather than easily replaceable cogs, and we could do so tomorrow if we wanted. Disclaimer, this is an opinion and commentary site and should not be confused as a news site. Also know that quite often people may disagree with the opinions posted.

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Saturday, February 7, 2015

Another reason Teach for America is so insidious.

I have read many times that Teach for America is used to
fill hard to fill positions at mostly inner city schools. Some of you might
think that is admirable, that they have seen a need and attempted to fill it. I
on the other hand believe it is a crutch that exacerbates problems that are
already in place.

Instead of addressing the problems why these positions are
so hard to fill, mostly because of low salary, behavioral concerns, and poverty,
the powers that be simply say “hey let’s get some temps in here to nurse the problem
along”.

Why should communities attempt to fix the problem if they
can just get some short-term workers to fill the gaps? Teacher pay poor, who
cares if we can just keep hiring and replacing first year teachers. People don’t want to work in the poorer
schools, especially with the road blocks that Florida has set up like tying
teacher pay to student test scores, who cares, let’s just hire some people who think,
I will try that for a couple years
before going to grad school. Why address behavior concerns when after a teacher
burns out in two years they can replace them with another. Teach for America
gives communities an out from addressing real problems. What do you think is a
better solution, dealing with our issues or kicking the can down the road?

Instead of staffing our schools, especially our hard to
staff schools with temporary workers with very little training and no education
and experience shouldn’t we be trying to staff our schools with professional
teachers or people who will spend a life time in our schools improving with
experience? Teach for America gives communities an out that our kids can’t
afford.